One of the most common things I hear from readers is: “I know what I’m supposed to do. I just don’t do it.”
Whether it’s staying consistent with exercise, writing a novel, or spending less time scrolling social media, most of us have a pretty good sense of the behavior we want to change. We even know the benefits. And we still struggle.
That’s why I was so excited when Nir Eyal reached out to share his new book, Beyond Belief. Nir is one of the thinkers who has most influenced how I think about focus, attention, and distraction — and in this book, he digs into the latest science on why belief is such a critical and often overlooked part of behavior change. He helped me reframe how I think about motivation entirely.
If you’ve felt stuck, like you want to make a change in your life, but it’s not happening, I think you’re going to love this conversation.
You can watch the full conversation on YouTube below, or read an abridged transcript beneath it.
Anywhere you see bold text, that’s me calling your attention to something that I think is interesting.
The missing ingredient in behavior change
Connor Swenson: Hey Nir, thanks for joining. You’ve spent years studying human behavior — from how products hook us to how we manage attention and distraction. And now your new book is about beliefs. What experience in your own life made you realize belief is such an important part of behavior change?
Nir Eyal: The thing that made me want to dive deeper was the frustration of having written two books that together sold over a million copies — and every once in a while someone will say, “Hey, I read your book, I really enjoyed it, but I didn’t really do anything about it.”
At first I was super frustrated by that. Indistractable took me five years to write. I have 30 pages of citations to peer-reviewed journals. I really wanted to get the research right. And everyone complains about distraction, about not having enough time. I put the solution on a silver platter — and they don’t do it.
Then I realized: I do this too. I have tons of books full of advice I haven’t put into practice. I’ve paid gurus and experts to tell me what to do and somehow I haven’t used it either.
What I learned is that our concept of motivation is wrong. We think it works like this: I want a benefit, I do the behavior, done. Classic economic incentives. Except there’s something hidden underneath — belief. Even if I know what to do and want the outcome, if I don’t believe I’ll get the benefit, I won’t be motivated. And if I don’t believe in my own ability to do the behavior, same result. Motivation isn’t a straight line — it’s a triangle. You need all three: the behavior, the benefit, and the belief.
Once I understood how these limiting beliefs cause self-sabotage, and how we can identify them, delete them, and replace them with what I call liberating beliefs — beliefs that reduce unnecessary suffering — I realized that’s the missing piece for finally doing our best work and living the lives we deserve.
The limiting belief most of us share about time
Connor: I hear from our readers and community all the time — they’re smart, they’re motivated, they want to make changes, and they still struggle with distraction and focus. When you think about limiting beliefs specifically around time and attention, what are the ones you hear most?
Nir: The most common limiting belief I hear — bar none, more than anything else — is “I don’t have time.”
And that’s a limiting belief. Because the human race is 200,000 years old. The earth is billions of years old. What do you mean you don’t have time? Time for what? For everything all at once? That’s what we’re really asking for — we want to do everything simultaneously, with no pain, perfectly. We expect one perfect day where everything happens exactly as planned. That’s not reality. And that expectation is what causes the suffering.
One of the biggest things that blew my mind doing this research is that pain and suffering are two separate things. Pain is just the signal entering your brain — it’s data. All pain happens in the brain. Suffering is the interpretation of that signal.
The philosopher Schopenhauer said that life is that which fights entropy — the very definition of being alive is fighting chaos. When I started taking that perspective, I stopped suffering. Am I still busy? Yes. But I’m not stressed. Do I still have high expectations? Yes. But I’m not suffering from them. Now I can look forward to the work.
One mantra I repeat to myself several times a day: “It doesn’t get easier — you get stronger.” That, I think, is what’s missing from so much productivity advice. People read a book, try the advice, find it’s hard, and think something is wrong. But it’s never going to get easy. Raising kids is hard. A quality marriage is hard. Starting a business is hard. But that doesn’t mean you have to suffer through it.
And here’s what really surprised me: the belief doesn’t even necessarily have to be objectively true. You might think, “Am I just gaslighting myself?” But I’d argue we’re already not seeing reality clearly — our brains can’t handle reality as-is. We create shortcuts and beliefs to filter it. So if beliefs make up such a huge proportion of our decisions, we better choose them consciously. Not based on our history or programming, but by actively asking: which beliefs are limiting me, and which ones can liberate me?
Reframing pain
Connor: I think about this with Make Time all the time. We have the four steps: pick a Highlight — your one big thing. Get laser focused. Energize, because the mind and body are connected. Reflect as you go. People get going with it, but then it gets hard — demanding job, kids, all of it. That reframe you’re describing is something I’m super excited to share. Knowing that it’s going to be hard, that pushing toward what matters is literally what engagement with life looks like — that’s not a sign something is broken. That’s the sign you’re doing it right.
Nir: Exactly. You’re alive. You’re trying to put structure and intention into chaos. That’s what living beings do. I almost wish productivity books opened with this: you have to reframe the pain as a virtue, not a source of suffering.
Another mantra I come back to often: when I’m on a hard project, when I want to quit or get distracted, I close my eyes for a second and say to myself: “This is what it feels like to get better.” That pain is just information. Nothing’s broken. And actually — this is difficult, which means I’m doing something other people can’t do, something I couldn’t do yesterday. This is happening for me, not to me.
Why visualizing success can backfire
Connor: In Make Time, the key daily practice is choosing a highlight — one big exciting thing to protect and prioritize. A lot of people have heard about visualization and manifestation: just imagine yourself finishing it, and that energy will help you get it done. But you argue that positive fantasies can actually drain motivation. Why is visualizing success a trap, and what should we do instead?
Nir: The problem with manifesting and positive thinking is that it focuses on outcomes. And there’s a lot of research that shows it can really backfire.
Gabrielle Oettingen did wonderful research where she hooked people up to blood pressure monitors as they visualized outcomes — the beach body, the Lamborghini, finding love. What was happening as they did these exercises? Their blood pressure was dropping. They were relaxing. And in follow-up contact, those who had visualized their desired outcomes became less likely to do the hard work to get them. Students who visualized the A became less likely to study. People on a diet who visualized being thin were less likely to change their eating habits.
The brain was registering: it’s already here. I’ve already enjoyed the pleasure. What’s the point of the hard work?
The lesson in this is don’t visualize success. Plan for the pain. This is called mental contrasting.
You contrast what you want with the psychological barrier in your way: your inability to tolerate discomfort. That’s what procrastination actually is. The difficult conversation you’re avoiding? That’s pain management. The scrolling instead of the presentation? Pain management. At the end of the day, it’s all about pain management.
And this is exactly what elite athletes visualize. Not the gold medal — the obstacles. The defensive line coming at them. The terrain of the ski slope. What might get in my way, and what will I do about it?
I used to be clinically obese, not just overweight. One tactic that changed my life: I visualized what I would do when someone offered me a piece of cake at a dinner party. I rehearsed the discomfort so the pain didn’t become suffering and rule my life. That’s the right way to use visualization.
Procrastination and the power of anticipation
Connor: Our readers care a lot about protecting their attention, but I think we all struggle with procrastination. You write that it’s less about motivation and more about avoiding anticipated discomfort. How do we use the power of anticipation to change our relationship to procrastination?
Nir: This was the biggest revelation of writing my last book. We keep the problem at a surface level when we blame technology — the email, the social media, the news. That’s a very kindergarten-level understanding.
One layer deeper: everything we do is driven not by carrots and sticks, but by the desire to escape discomfort. Even craving and desire — wanting to feel good — is itself psychologically destabilizing. The brain spurs us to act by creating a bit of discomfort. So: time management is pain management. Weight management is pain management. Money management is pain management. It’s all pain management.
I wouldn’t have believed this next story if I hadn’t seen the videos myself. A commodities trader named Daniel Gissler — a very analytical, no-woo guy — broke bones in his ankle, had pins inserted to let them heal, and years later needed a 55-minute operation to remove the screws. He came across a technique called hypnosedation — not stage hypnosis, but a deep process of controlling your beliefs and your power of anticipation.
He went through that 55-minute operation — scalpel cutting into flesh, metal screws being wrenched from bone — without general anesthesia, without local anesthesia. Nothing. And he wasn’t just gritting his teeth. His heart rate and blood pressure stayed stable throughout.
Why do I tell this story? Not because I want anyone to try that. I tell it because: if the brain can do that — if it can experience the pain of surgery without suffering — what else is it capable of? When we change our expectations, we change our life.
The Turnaround Practice
Connor: Our readers are very tactical and experimental. If someone hears this and wants to run a small experiment to challenge a limiting belief — maybe around their time, attention, or focus — what would you suggest they try?
Nir: I prefer strategies to tactics — a strategy is the why, and once you have that, you can come up with a hundred tactics.
The most powerful strategy here is a turnaround practice. It comes from Byron Katie’s work, which she traces back to Aristotle — four questions you can run through in about 30 seconds:
1. Is my belief true? Write down whatever’s causing you suffering: I don’t have time. I have a short attention span. I have imposter syndrome. Then ask: is it true?
2. Is it absolutely true? Without exception, 100% of the time? Almost always, there’s an exception.
3. Who am I with this belief? How does it cause me to suffer? What do I become?
4. Who would I be without it?
What this practice reveals, almost every time, is that the belief is optional. It’s not absolutely true. It’s hurting you. And you’d be better off without it.
Then do the turnaround: could the exact opposite also be true? I have plenty of time. I’m good at focusing. I’m great at time management. Can you find even one circumstance where that’s true — even 1%? If so, try it on. Not to convince yourself of something false, not to fake it till you make it — but to look through life through a different lens, like trying on a pair of glasses.
Beliefs are tools, not truths. When we build a portfolio of perspectives instead of being locked in one story about ourselves, we can choose the belief that actually serves us.
Support Nir’s Work
Beyond Belief is out now — and if you order before March 16th, Nir’s including three exclusive bonuses:
👉 A free ticket to his “Break Through Limiting Beliefs” Workshop (March 21, 12pm ET / 4pm GMT) — he’ll walk through the belief-transformation system live
👉 A 30-Day Belief Transformation Journal — daily prompts to catch limiting beliefs, 8 in-depth exercises to uncover root belief patterns, and evidence-tracking to make your new beliefs stick
👉 Access to a private interview series with Kim Scott, Dr. David Burkus, and Jon Levy on the belief systems behind high-performing teams
If you got something useful from this conversation, the book is the obvious next step.
